that gave Annie the impression that he was right at home in the elegant accommodations.
Clack clack sheesh clack clack sheesh, the train rumbled beneath her feet racing across the miles of picturesque countryside. The door to his compartment was open just a crack. Someone with more nerve than Annie would have walked right in and sat down.
She nearly laughed at the very idea of herself doing something like that. It was completely unlike her. If she did it, if she could gather enough nerve just to go for it, it would be baptism by fire, but—
“Excuse me, miss, may I have your ticket please?” a cheery, loud German voice called behind her.
She whirled around to face a short, round, uniformed railroad employee. One hand was filled with passenger tickets that he’d already collected, his other hand was extended toward Annie expectantly.
“Yes…I…” Her face flamed as she thought, for one wild moment, that he might have known what she’d been contemplating. She fumbled awkwardly through her purse, looking for the first-class ticket she knew wasn’t in there and hoping for the coach-class ticket that should have been. She switched from English to German and said, “One moment. It’s in here somewhere.”
She glanced up and the train employee lowered his brow.
“Really.” She dug some more, feeling more hopeless by the second of ever finding the ticket. “I bought it right before I got on board in Munich.” She prayed silently that the Greek god in the private compartment wasn’t watching. He probably was, after all the door to his compartment was nearly all glass and she was right in front of it.
The train conductor shifted his weight and crossed his arms in front of him. “Come now, miss, you can purchase your ticket on board. It’s four hundred marks.”
Annie felt her blood drain to her feet. “Four hundred—” The train suddenly lurched and she lost her balance, teetering momentarily against the door to the mystery man’s compartment before it flew open, sending her sprawling onto the hard metal floor in front of the man himself, her glasses clattering on the floor beside her.
“I’m sorry.” Annie felt around for her glasses and, finding them, put them on. She met the man’s eyes, which were green and even more intense than she possibly could have imagined, and mentally shrank to about two inches tall.
The man shifted in his seat, watching with what appeared to be some interest. Those incredible eyes flicked from her to the angry-looking train official and back again, but he said nothing.
“I’m so sorry.” Annie scrambled to her feet, and tried to smile.
He smiled back and cocked his head slightly, as if questioning what she did for an encore. “Quite all right,” he said smoothly.
He took her breath away and made her lose all track of what she was going to say. “I was…”
The train employee cleared his throat, an unpleasant reminder of the other presence in the compartment.
She turned to him and said, “I’ve got my ticket here someplace.”
Both men looked at her, so she made another attempt at finding her ticket in her bag. It was nowhere to be seen. In English, she muttered a mild oath that would, nevertheless, have gotten a student at Pendleton sent to the headmaster’s office.
The ticket collector frowned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to purchase a ticket, miss.”
“She said she has a ticket already,” the other man said, in a voice as rich and smooth as crème brûlée. His German was slightly accented, but Annie couldn’t tell what the inflection was.
“Policy, sir.” The little round face grew redder. “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the Adonis said. He hesitated for a moment, then reached for a small leather backpack at his feet. He nodded at Annie. “Please, allow me.” He pulled out several large-denomination bills.
“No, no, I can’t let you do that,” Annie objected, digging in her purse for the four hundred marks.
“But I insist.” Her unlikely hero gave a cold nod to the other man. “Please bring her bags in here.” He started to hand some bills to the man but Annie, who had been hurriedly counting out the four hundred, handed her money to him first. “Thank you anyway,” she said to the Adonis.
He held her eyes steadily, just a touch of a smile on his lips. “Certainly.”
The rail employee started to speak, but his mouth shut suddenly and he poked his head forward to study Annie’s knight more closely. “Wait a minute…Don’t tell me you’re—”
The man looked down suddenly, like a reflex. “Thank you so much for your help. That will be all.” With that dismissal, he looked away, heedless of the ticket collector’s stare.
The train worker left, scratching his head, and muttering, “Of course it’s not him, he wouldn’t be here,” without even a glance back at Annie.
Annie studied the man wondering who the conductor had thought her companion was. He kept his face slightly averted. Whoever it was that he looked like, he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Probably some obscure European movie star. He certainly had the looks for it. More to the point, he was turning her insides to melted butter, and she’d better stop gawking at him.
“Thank you for your offer of help,” she said, and began to back toward the door. “I apologize for this intrusion on your privacy.”
He gave a shrug. “It’s no problem. I’m only sorry that man was such an unpleasant ambassador to my country. You are American?”
She stopped and nodded, wondering if he expected her to stay.
“Please,” he said, answering her unasked question with a wave of his hand. “Have a seat. I’d welcome the company, unless you have someplace else you have to be.”
“N-no. Thank you.” She sat, mesmerized by him.
“I wouldn’t want you to take home the impression that Kublenstein is unfriendly to strangers,” he said, with a devastating smile.
“I won’t, I absolutely won’t,” she said. There was a moment’s silence, so she added, “I really do have a ticket, or at least I did…”
“I believe you.”
But she wasn’t sure if he really believed her or not. “My name is Annie, by the way.” He didn’t answer right away, so she prodded him, “And you are…?”
He watched her for a moment, wearing an expression she couldn’t quite read. “You don’t know?” he asked after a long minute.
A tickle ran over her skin, like a cool breeze. It was a feeling she’d had before, always when something big was about to happen. She had that sense now, that his question held more significance than it appeared to. “No,” she said simply. “Should I?”
He smiled. “No, of course not. I simply thought I’d—I’d already said.” He shrugged, but looked suspiciously like the cat that ate the canary. He extended his hand to her. “I
